Books by Rachel (Royal Holloway Beckles Willson

Orientalism and Musical Mission presents a new way of understanding music's connections with imperialism, drawing on new archive sources and interviews and using the lens of 'mission'. Rachel Beckles Willson demonstrates how institutions such as churches, schools, radio stations and governments, influenced by missions from Europe and North America since the mid-nineteenth century, have consistently claimed that music provides a way of understanding and reforming Arab civilians in Palestine. Beckles Willson discusses the phenomenon not only in religious and developmental aid circles where it has had strong currency, but also in broader political contexts. Plotting a historical trajectory from the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras to the present time, the book sheds new light on relations between Europe, the USA and the Palestinians, and creates space for a neglected Palestinian music history.

Drawing on key elements from musical thought in inter-war Hungary, this 2007 book provides a unique perspective on the nation's musical heritage during the Cold War. Although Ligeti became part of the Western avant-garde after he left Hungary in 1956, archival sources illuminate his ongoing contact with Hungarian musicians, and their shifting perspective on his work.